But that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth?
Paul has just quoted a psalm about a conqueror going up on high with gifts for men. Now he stops to ask what going up must mean. The answer goes down before it goes up. How far down do "the lower regions" reach? And why does a verse about the gifts of Christ take this turn at all?
This verse breaks into the flow. One writer explains why the descent comes second in the telling, and gets only a passing mention:
In Ephesians 4:9-10, the eighteenth verse of Psalm 68 is quoted, and then comes the comment that His ascent means He first descended into the lower parts of the earth. The descent came first in time. But it gets only a passing mention, because His triumphant ascension is the main point before the mind of the Spirit.
One writer traces two stages in His going down:
To say that He ascended means that He first descended into the lower parts of the earth. The point He departs from here is not heaven but earth. When He came down from heaven He came only as far as earth. He came here to reveal the Father and bring the love of God to men. But when men would have nothing to do with Him, He went down further, even into the lower parts of the earth. He said in the day of His rejection: "For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matt. 12:40).
One writer sets a firm limit on how far down the phrase reaches — to the grave, the place of the dead, and no further:
Ephesians 4:9 gives no support to any descent of the Lord to carry the departed saints on high. True, the verse does not speak of His descent as the Son from heaven to become man. It goes no further than His descent to the grave, as a man on earth. He tasted death, truly died, and was buried. Jehovah would not leave His soul in Sheol or Hades, nor let His holy One see corruption. He who descended so low ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.
Not everyone stops at the grave. Others read the descent as the whole way down, from becoming man to the cross:
He had the highest place above, if I may say so, naturally and in His own being. It belonged to Him as the Son of God, who was equal with God by right; yet He stooped to be made flesh. God's purpose required that He should be man. Without His becoming man there could have been no undoing of the whole ruin of mankind, and of the dishonour done to God by sin. There could have been no defeat of Satan, and no full and righteous deliverance for man... To have stooped to become man, and to live as He lived, rejected and humbled on earth, would have been much. But what is that compared to the cross? He went down to the very lowest, and because of that humiliation He is now, as man, exalted to the highest.
One writer sets the descent inside a bigger story — man's captivity, and his rescue:
This Deliverer has proved Himself not only mighty in this way, but glorious. He fills all things. He has both descended and ascended. He has been in the lower parts of the earth — the grave, the very stronghold of the Captor. He is now far above all heavens... He carried out the deliverance in the lower parts of the earth. Now, in the highest places, far above all heavens, He has received gifts for those who were once the victims of the Serpent. He has handed them out.
One writer answers a worry: could this supply of gifts ever end?
Perhaps some have already asked: Will this ever end? Will the assembly one day be left without building up? But then we look into the open heaven and see Christ there. He is still there, and He is still the One who gives the gifts. He so loved the assembly that He descended into the lower parts of the earth. So the ministry which those gifts carry out cannot stop while Christ is there!
- Down first. The descent came first in time. It gets only a passing mention, because the triumphant ascension is the main subject.
- Down from earth. He came from heaven only as far as earth. When men rejected Him, He went lower still, into the heart of the earth.
- Down to the grave. Commentators differ here. Some limit the phrase to His death and burial. Others trace the whole stoop, from becoming man to the cross.
- Down into enemy ground. The grave was the Captor's stronghold. He went in, won the deliverance there, and came out.
- Down, therefore up. The One who went lowest now gives from the highest place, and while He is there the supply for His body cannot fail.
He that descended is the same who has also ascended up above all the heavens, that he might fill all things;
This verse is a short aside, and it reaches from the grave to the highest heaven. Two questions sit at its centre: who is the One who travelled both ways, and what does it mean that He fills all things?
The One in the depths and the One in the heights are not two figures but one.
This is the One, the same One, the only One. He has left His memorial in "the lower parts of the earth," and borne it with Him upward, "far above all the heavens." He fills all things. God has been here; Man is there. In earlier days faith was told that God was here on earth in full glory — the Son among the children of men. In these days faith is told that Man is now in heaven. He entered there from the slight and the scorn, the weakness and the humiliation of the scene here.
The descent went below the earth — into the grave and hades, the unseen world of the dead.
He went down into the lower parts of the earth, the grave, but hades for His soul. He went into the under world, the lower parts of the earth, and then He is far above all the heavens. He has been below creation, for death and hades are in a sense below it. Then He is above it. In this way He fills all things. We see Christ in His redemption power filling everything. All service and ministry have their place in that, and they flow from it.
Other passages put the ascension in milder words. This one goes further.
"Far above all the heavens" is a remarkable expression. In Mark 16 we have the Divine Servant "taken up into heaven." In Hebrews 4 the great High Priest has "passed through the heavens." Here the victorious Man has "ascended far above all the heavens." The very heaven of heavens is His. And it is His so that He may "fill all things" — another remarkable word. Even today each believer should be filled with the Spirit, as we see a little further on in this letter. A believer filled with the Spirit must be filled with Christ, and so Christ comes out of him. The day is coming when Christ will fill all things, and then all things will display Him and His glory. The "all things" spoken of here means everything that in any way comes under His headship — everything within the universe of blessing.
What is this fullness? One answer looks past Godhead alone.
The fullness of Him that fills all in all is not just Godhead, but Christ in redemption. Ephesians 4:10 leads one to this. It is redemption. He who went into the lower parts of the earth is now far above all the heavens.
That filling is God's answer to how low His Son went.
We may not be able to fathom this profound language. Still, it cannot mean less than this. Because Christ humbled Himself, and because of the work He then carried out to accomplish the purposes of God, He will one day flood the whole universe with His own redemption-glory. And this, and nothing short of this, will be God's answer to the humiliation of His beloved Son.
The road He took is what qualifies Him to give gifts.
If Christ has ascended on high, it must mean that He first descended into the lower parts of the earth. He has been into death, and from that lowest place He has ascended far above all the heavens. So He has passed through "all things." In doing so He has gained, as Man, perfect knowledge of every circumstance of life and death the believer may have to pass through... Knowing "all things," He can give gifts that meet our every need as we travel through this world of sorrow and trial on our way to glory.
Look for a place where Christ has not been, and the search closes both ways.
He has gone right down to the very depths where He overcame Satan, and ascended to God's right hand. His present position and His glory give Him this privilege: He makes those who were Satan's captives the vessels of His power to deliver others... God fills the whole horizon of the soul here with Christ. Look as deep down as you like, He has been there. Look as high as you like, He is there.
- One Person. The One in the grave and the One above every heaven are the same, the only One — this is the hinge the verse turns on.
- Down first. The descent went below creation itself — into death and the unseen world, where the enemy held power.
- Up furthest. Not just into heaven, and not just through the heavens, but far above them all, as a victorious Man.
- Filling, not just occupying. What fills the universe is Christ in redemption. One day the whole creation will be flooded with redemption-glory — God's answer to His Son's humiliation.
- Filling us now. He knows every step of the road, so His gifts meet our real needs. Filled with His Spirit, believers start to display Him here.